


What's a God to an Alien

by DancingForRain



Series: StarkGate [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Stargate SG-1, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Battle of New York (Marvel), Gen, could be Jack/Daniel slash if you squint, follows the events of the first Avengers, story titles continue to be my downfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 09:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingForRain/pseuds/DancingForRain
Summary: Stargate Command gets an unwanted visit from Loki (but not their Loki) and Daniel is once again at the mercy of aliens (but not the usual aliens). Tony Stark finds himself working alongside an Airforce Colonel (but not his Colonel) and in the end things don't really change all that much.





	What's a God to an Alien

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of a mini fic I wrote a while back where Tony finds out about the SGC.
> 
> In this house we ignore and disrespect timelines. Just roll with it.

“Welcome back, Daniel.”

Daniel greets Sam’s warm smile with a relieved one of his own as the wormhole dissipates behind him. The Gateroom of the SGC is a welcome sight after two weeks on P3X-572, Sam’s friendly face more so. SG-8 is one of the larger teams, designed for long-term missions, and one of the few teams without an assigned anthropologist. Hammond had assigned Daniel to them temporarily while they investigated the ruins of what had once been a bustling city in the hopes of finding the cause for its destruction.

The conclusion Daniel has grimly come to is civil war. He’s collected enough articles and evidence to keep him busy for a month in determining exactly what had started such a war, though a small, irrational part of him thinks it might just be something in the air. SG-8 had been on edge and snappish from the start, arguing amongst themselves but mostly taking their troubles out on Daniel.

There is, as always, the possibility that they’re just a bunch of jarheads who don’t appreciate having to schlep about for the geek, but Daniel’s spent enough time with the Air Force by now that he tries not to jump to that conclusion.

Whatever the reason, it’s been a long two weeks, and Daniel is unbelievably happy to be home.

“Anything blow up while I was gone?”

Sam shakes her head, amused. “No explosions, no wormholes – not even a single invasion.”

“How boring.”

“The Colonel certainly seems to think so.” Sam tilts her head towards him, as if sharing a secret. “He’s practically bouncing off the walls.”

They step to the side of the room to make way for soldiers carrying crates of old newspapers and dishevelled posters. Daniel thinks one of them gives him a dirty look, but he could just be getting paranoid.

“You guys didn’t have any missions while I was gone?”

“We can hardly work as a first contact team without our anthropologist, can we?” Sam asks, nudging him with her elbow. Daniel raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not the only one on base, Sam.” Though sometimes it certainly feels like it. Being the head of his branch has its perks, but it comes with a workload Daniel hasn’t experienced since his college days.

Sam smiles somewhat sheepishly and murmurs “you’re the only one Colonel O’Neill will work with. Why do you think he gets so annoyed when you’re loaned out to another team?”

“Because he’s a control freak?”

Sam clearly wants to laugh, but she holds it in. “Maybe that too.”

“Unscheduled wormhole! We have an off-world activation!”

Daniel and Sam turn to the gate in surprise. The iris is closed, reflecting the light of the wormhole to the back of the room. Airmen swarm into the room and take up defensive positions, their guns aimed steady.

For a brief moment, everyone holds their breath.

Then a man comes _through_ the iris, shimmering as if under water until he steps out onto the platform and solidifies. He stands confidently, almost lazily, and he surveys them like a king gazing out over his subjects.

General Hammond’s voice rings out over the speakers. “State your name and purpose!”

The man looks up at the control room. He’s tall, incredibly so, and lean, with an almost sickly pallor under slicked back black hair. In one hand he holds a staff with some kind of glowing stone attached at the top. He smiles, and it is not a nice smile. It’s smug, and slimy. It’s the kind of smile a system lord would wear.

“You will explain the meaning of this at once, or we will open fire!”

The man cocks his head, like a dog deciding whether or not it should obey a command. Finally, he speaks, in a voice that is soft and yet carries clearly across the room.

“My name is Loki,” he says with pride, “and I am here to bring your world to its knees.”

And suddenly he’s no longer standing on the platform, but is front of one of the airmen, lifting him by the throat and throwing him against the wall. The air fills with the sound of gunfire but Loki brushes it off like irritating flies. He whirls to the next closest man and brings his staff to the man’s chest, and Daniel flinches, waiting for the impact, for the pointed tip to slice into him, but it simply stops over the man’s heart and the glow grows brighter.

Daniel watches in horror as the airman’s stance relaxes and he looks up at Loki with eyes that glow the same colour as the stone. His expression is one of awe.

Brainwashing.

More men are filing into the room but Loki is fast. He strikes down the first line of defence like a violent toddler would knock over his toys, and Daniel grips Sam’s arm when he realises Loki’s heading straight for them.

Daniel knows what it’s like to have your mind warped and twisted to someone else’s designs. He still has nightmares about that damn sarcophagus, about what it made him do. He has no desire to go through the experience again, and he’ll be damned if he lets it happen to Sam.

But, while Daniel’s talents in combat have improved over the years (courtesy of Jack, who flipped out after Daniel came home bruised and bloody one too many times and insisted that he learn how to at least defend himself), he’s no soldier, and he’s certainly no match for – whatever this man is. He’s not even carrying a gun (and some detached part of him knows Jack’s going to flip out about that too, when he finds out).

Sam is, of course, and she aims steadily at Loki’s chest but before she can so much as fire a shot he’s on her, wrenching it out of her hands and twisting her wrist in the process. She cries out in pain and Daniel, in a fit of panic and anger, tackles him.

They both seem equally surprised by the action and it’s probably that surprise that actually has Loki falling, losing his grip on Sam in the process. They land hard, Daniel on top of him, and he manages to get in one punch that he’s going to be proud of until the day he dies before Loki knocks him back.

Daniel slams against the wall and crumples, dazed. His glasses have fallen somewhere and the scene plays out in a blur before him as he tries to lift himself up.

Loki is standing in front of Sam again, holding her injured wrist cruelly. “You will be of use to me,” he says, low and calm. He lifts his staff and brings it against her chest, and Daniel yells in fear.

There’s a moment’s pause, the gunfire temporarily delayed while Loki holds one of their own in the firing line. Daniel scrabbles for his glasses, hearing Loki murmur an annoyed _“what?”_ as he finds them and brings them to his face.

Sam’s face is scrunched up in pain, but there’s no dazed look, no misplaced awe, and her eyes remain their normal, solid blue.

For the first time, Loki looks uncertain. But only for a moment.

The uncertainty quickly turns to rage and he throws Sam away. Daniel yells again as she hits the ground and doesn’t move, struggling to his feet. He sways, dizzy. He’s between Loki and the airmen blocking the exit, but he saw how easily Loki can take down trained soldiers. Desperate to prevent further bloodshed, he faces the man – a goa’uld, most likely, pretending to be the Nordic trickster god, though Daniel’s never met a snake with the kind of technology this one seems to have.

“Whatever you want, I’m sure we can work something out,” he says shakily. He has no intentions of ever giving into a goa’uld’s demands, but they’re clearly outmatched. Daniel’s used to being outmatched, has been long before the SGC ever came about. He’s spent his life being pitted against people bigger, stronger, meaner than him. He’s constantly outclassed when it comes to fighting. All he has – all he’s ever had – are his words. “Give us your demands, and we’ll – “

The god-pretender, unfortunately, has no intentions on listening. He steps forward, so that he is only inches from Daniel’s face, and looks down at him. Daniel feels like he’s being peeled open and studied, under that gaze. Like Loki can look right into his very soul and find him wanting.

“A consolation prize,” he murmurs to himself, and the next thing Daniel feels is the tip of something pointy pressing against his chest, before a warm sensation spreads through his veins, and his very world is tipped on its head.

* * *

“You have an incoming call, Sir.”

Tony drags his eyes away from the footage of the Hulk tearing up Harlem and waves a hand dismissively. “I’m a little busy here, J.” He’s trying to absorb as much information about the Tesseract and the other supposed ‘Avengers’ as he can before he flies out to the helicarrier. He’s left the file on Captain America untouched, but he tells himself he’s just saving it for last.

“It’s Colonel O’Neill, Sir.”

Tony sighs. He’d been expecting this since Coulson dropped the bomb that an alien had broken through the Stargate and left with half of the SGC’s personnel in tow. He’d just hoped he’d be further away when it happened. “Put him through.”

“Stark,” says O’Neill gruffly before Tony has the chance to open his mouth. “I hear you’ve been recruited for this shitshow.”

That’s one way of putting it. “Shitshows are something of a speciality of mine.”

“I want in.”

Straight to the point. That’s fine with Tony, it saves him time. “And if you were cleared for this mission, Colonel, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He presses forward before O’Neill can get an argument in. “This guy isn’t a goa’uld, O’Neill. He’s got more power in his little finger than all of your system lords combined. You need to leave this to the big guns.”

“Like hell,” comes the expected response. “I don’t give a damn what this Loki jackoff is. He’s just another alien with a god complex. I’ve had plenty of experience with them. I can help.”

Tony thinks of the sparse folders on Thor and Loki and thinks they might be a lot closer to the real deal than O’Neill realises. He figures it’s not the time to argue over semantics. “Listen, Colonel, I know he’s taken some of your men. I’m sorry. We’re going to do everything we can to get them back, but – “

“Damnit, Stark, he’s got Daniel.”

That makes Tony pause. Coulson hadn’t mentioned that little detail. He knows Tony’s briefed on the Stargate program – officially, after his first little impromptu visit, and has made many trips to Cheyenne Mountain since, helping Carter with Gate maintenance and research of technology brought back from alien worlds. He’s even strategized with O’Neill, a couple of times, who seems to have grown a (very grudging) respect for the billionaire. He still hasn’t gone off world, hasn’t been authorised, and Tony _knows_ General Hammond is stalling, but he’s persistent. One day, he’s going to step through that Stargate.

Although Tony and Daniel’s work never intersect on Tony’s visits, he’s spent a surprising amount of time with the man. In moments between research, times when his eyes have gone dry and itchy from staring at numbers and symbols on a computer screen that sorely needs an upgrade, he’s found himself visiting the doctor in his office of treasures from the past. It’s not really his thing, anthropology, but he can’t deny a curiosity to the artefacts of far away worlds, and Daniel has a talent for spinning tales of the past that make it seem exciting and intriguing. He’s grown fond of the younger man, for his dry wit and the kind of empathy and humanity that Tony finds is rare, at least in his own circles. Not to mention the guy can hand O’Neill’s own ass to him like no one else Tony’s seen.

However fond he is of Dr Jackson, though, he knows it’s nothing like how O’Neill feels for the man, and he realises that whether he’s cleared for this mission or not, the Colonel’s going to get himself involved. He finds himself imagining if it had been Rhodey bewitched by the trickster god, and suddenly he doesn’t even want to keep O’Neill away.

“Alright,” he says finally. “I’ll get you in.”

* * *

The helicarrier is impressive, made even more so by the presence of the god of thunder and Dr Banner, who Tony is already half in love with and has decided to keep. He supposes the actual living, breathing Captain America is pretty impressive too, but Tony’s doing his best not to think about him. It’s difficult, considering the man’s walking around in literal red white and blue.

All in all, Colonel O’Neill seems to be taking everything remarkably in stride, and Tony has to remind himself that this guy is no normal Airforce Colonel – he’s fought wars on planets across the galaxy. A flying ship housing a rag tag group of aliens and spies is probably an average day for him.

“How do we find him?” O’Neill demands, standing just to the side of the round table. Tony’s not entirely sure which ‘him’ he’s referring to.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” says Fury pointedly, “immediately after the attack on Cheyenne Mountain, Loki infiltrated one of our underground facilities. He made off with the tesseract.”

“The tesse-whatever is meant to be locked up at Area 51,” O’Neill says with a snarl. “What the hell was SHIELD doing with it in the first place?”

Fury turns to look at Tony. For a guy with only one eye, he’s got an impressive glare. Tony raises an eyebrow, unapologetic. Tony’s seen O’Neill act in crisis situations; he knows he can help. Fury hadn’t seen it that way when he’d shown up with a stowaway.

Besides, it’s a good question.

Fury, being the sneaky spy that he is, naturally avoids answering. “The point is, we can track him through the tesseract. That’s why we’ve brought Dr Banner on board.”

“Is it?” Bruce asks, quietly but with a hint of challenge, and Tony bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking. He’s definitely keeping this guy.

“If you’re tracking the tesserack – “ Bruce corrects him under his breath but O’Neill carries on without even looking in his direction, “you need Major Carter. She studied that thing for months.”

“Colonel, I understand your men were caught in the crossfire, but this is no longer an Airforce matter. _You_ shouldn’t even be here.” There’s that glare again.

Tony ignores it and narrows his eyes, scrutinising Fury. “O’Neill’s right, Eyepatch. No one knows the thing better than Carter. No offence, Dr Banner,” and Bruce lifts one hand in a ‘go ahead’ gesture, “but she’d easily be the fastest to locate it. You _know_ that.” He takes a step forward, his brain whirring. “Which means, surprise surprise, you have an ulterior motive.”

“That’s an awfully quick conclusion to jump to,” Captain America pipes up from the table. Tony does his best not to react to the man’s voice. “This isn’t the kind of mission that anyone can be read into. It involves men from outer space, for goodness sake. I don’t know what kind of operation is going on at this Cheyenne Mountain, but – “

“That’s because it’s an operation that _you_ can’t be read into, Cap,” says Tony before he can stop himself. The man frowns at him but Tony’s gone and acknowledged his presence now, so he might as well continue. “They might not have your fancy super strength, but believe me. If any straight up normal humans were capable of dealing with Loki, it’d be the ones from that mountain.” He looks away before he can read into the unhappy look on his face and turns Fury’s glare back on him. “Which Nick knows.”

“Damn right,” O’Neill adds. “Cut the bullshit, Fury. This isn’t the time for SHIELD dramatics.”

Fury looks very much like he’s ready to just throw them all off his ship, but he’s saved having to answer when Hill interrupts. “Sir, we’ve got sightings of Loki in Germany.”

* * *

Loki seems all too comfortable in his cage, smiling out at Jack as if letting him in on some big joke. Jack doesn’t feel a whole lot like laughing.

“Where’s Daniel?”

“Who?” Loki sounds bored, disinterested in the conversation, but Jack can feel himself being heavily examined.

“You know, about yea high, big glasses,” says Jack. He’s trying to remain casual. In control. It’s damn hard when he has no idea what this alien of the week has done with Daniel. “Likes to talk your ear off. You can’t miss him.”

“Oh yes,” says Loki, his smile growing bigger. It looks just about inhuman. “Him.”

“Him,” confirms Jack. “Where is he?”

“He’s certainly entertaining, your Daniel,” Loki says instead of answering. Goddamn aliens and their grandstanding. “He seemed to think he could talk me into submission.”

Jack grits his teeth. Yes, he’d heard how it had gone down in the gateroom. He can’t wait to get his geek back so that he can hit him upside the head. Standing between the bad guy and a small army of men with P90s is so frustratingly Daniel.

But he makes himself come across as light-hearted when he says “well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Loki’s foreign to their world, but he’s no fool. “You care about him a great deal,” he says, and there’s no hint of question in his voice. He steps forward, leering at Jack, and asks “what would you do to get him back?”

This isn’t the first time the enemy’s tried to play with Jack and his team. He raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, and can practically see in his mind’s eye Daniel mirroring the motion. Loki frowns at the lack of reaction and takes another step forward. “What would you do if I hurt him? What if I broke your friend into a hundred little pieces?”

“Daniel’s surprisingly hard to break,” Jack says as his fists clench.

“And what if I killed him?”

“Hasn’t stopped him before.”

Loki is silent, considering those words. “Interesting,” he says. Finally, his smile is back, just as slimy and self-satisfied as before. “It seems this Daniel is worth a second look. I’ll be sure to tell him you said hello.”

In the distance, there’s an explosion, and the helicarrier begins to fall from the sky.

* * *

The Battle of New York is without doubt the scariest, bloodiest, most destructive combat situation Jack has ever found himself in, and frustratingly, he doesn’t even get to fire a gun.

Natasha Romanov, a woman he hasn’t trusted from the moment he first lay eyes on her, does plenty of shooting with a dropped staff weapon, keeping the _giant freaking lizards_ from bearing down on him.

Instead he finds himself on the landing pad of Stark’s big obnoxious tower doing his best to follow Carter’s frantic instructions in his ear to close the portal. He’s always respected Carter’s knowledge of the technical mumbo jumbo but he has an all new appreciation for her brain after going through the complicated and ridiculous process of turning off Loki’s machine. He’s finally on the last sequence when Stark announces the arrival of a goddamn nuke, which, what the _actual hell_ , if this was by orders of the President he’s officially retiring for good. Stark asks him to keep the wormhole open just a bit longer, and when O’Neill realises what he’s planning he feels sorrow hit him like a punch to the gut. Stark is flashy and loud and, on the surface, just about everything Jack hates about higher society. But he’s gotten to see glimpses of the man underneath in the months that they’ve known each other. He’s watched Stark get into wild, enthusiastic conversations and debates with Sam, the two of them raising their voices and flinging their hands around in excitement like two children discussing what flavour ice cream they’re going to get after their parents have said they can have a treat. He treats Teal’c with the kind of casualness only SG-1 themselves have managed around the Jaffa, listens with absolute focus when he talks of his homeworld, his family. He’s needled Daniel when Jack wasn’t there to do it, distracted him into having proper meals and dragging him out of the mountain on a couple of occasions.

Stark, despite all of his fancy suits and flashy smiles and brisk arrogance, is a good man. What he’s about to do only proves this, and Jack finds himself wishing he’d actually told the guy, at some point.

But then Stark’s through the wormhole and the connection breaks off.

Captain Rogers, with a voice full of regret, tells Jack to close it. Jack thinks of leaving Daniel on a ship about to explode and the overwhelming guilt that had followed him after, and hesitates, just briefly, before pushing the final button.

He doesn’t look up to watch the wormhole disappear. He glares out over the city and thinks how disappointed Daniel’s going to be when he finds him.

A gasp over the comms gets him to finally look into the sky. Something – someone – is falling.

* * *

“Yo, Colonel,” calls the archer. Of all the ridiculous things Jack’s seen over the years, he’s pretty sure a man firing honest to god _arrows_ at an alien army has to be up there. He refrains from pointing this out, however, because he’s got someone in tow that suddenly has all of Jack’s attention. “Think I found something of yours.”

Daniel is looking dazed and vaguely sick but wholly, blessedly alive. Jack bounds towards him, a goofy grin on his face that he doesn’t bother to tamp down. Daniel goes into his arms willingly. He hugs Jack tight in a way that says he’s not as okay as he seems, but it’s not the first time that he’s hugged Jack like that. Jack has plenty of practice at keeping the doctor together, and he’ll happily do it again.

There’s a familiar whir and clank beside them that signals the Iron Man suit landing. Jack lets Daniel go and steps back, just a bit, to take in Tony Stark.

The faceplate lifts, and Jack recognises the haunted look in his eyes, has seen it in the mirror often enough. Stark, like Daniel, is not as okay as his tired grin would have you believe. But Jack’s met Pepper Potts. He knows the man’s in good hands.

“Good to see you un-zombiefied, Doc.”

Daniel smiles wanly. “Thanks.” He looks briefly up at the sky then back at the genius. “What you did…”

Stark blanches, just slightly, and holds up a hand to cut him off. “It was nothing. You would have done the same, I’ll bet.” Jack grimaces at the truth of it.

Daniel studies Stark’s face. He was quicker to catch on to the man’s façade than Jack, or even Sam. He’s unnaturally good at reading him. The look of discomfort that crosses Stark’s face when he sees Daniel looking at him so intently is one that Jack can relate to. “Seriously, Doc,” says Stark, with a forced laugh. “It’s not a big deal. And I’d rather move on from it, if it’s all the same to you.”

Daniel nods, acquiescing, but he still looks concerned. Jack feels he should probably warn Stark that he’ll be getting a number of calls over the next few months.

“I think it’s safe to say you’ll be approved to step through the Stargate after this,” he says instead. Stark looks at him with more wariness than he’s ever seen on his face.

“Maybe hold off on that paperwork,” he says with fake cheer. “I think one wormhole is enough for me, for now.”

Jack nods in understanding and holds out his hand. Tony looks at it with faint surprise before grasping it. Despite the gauntlet encasing his hand, the grip is gentle as they shake.

“Thank you, Tony,” says Jack. His other hand is resting against Daniel’s shoulder. He hasn’t broken contact once, not completely, not yet ready to. Stark looks from him to Daniel and nods his own understanding back.

“Any time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't find a natural place in the story to explain (probably could if I tried harder but I'm being lazy) but Sam wasn't affected by the staff because of Jolinar's DNA. It seems to give her a get out of jail free card in a lot of situations.


End file.
